1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, and control method and program of the image processing apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, as photo image input devices such as digital cameras or color scanners and image output devices such as color printers become increasingly popular and sophisticated, a variety of ways of using digital photo images have been proposed. Pictures are often not only simply printed on a recording sheet of paper as they are taken, but used after being processed and edited in many ways. The proposed usages include, for example, writing a message in a photo image and sending it as a letter, or writing a title or an illustration in a photo image and fixing it in an album.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H09-139832 proposes a method in which, if a user wants to add a message or an illustration by hand to a photo image input from an image input device, the user writes the message or the illustration by hand on a separate sheet of paper from the input photo image, and the handwritten image is read by a reading apparatus and combined with the photo image.
In doing such image composition, there is a desire to further edit a photo image in various ways, for example, by executing a trimming process to cut out part of the photo image, by executing a correction process to the photo image, or by adding a decorative pattern such as a frame or a stamp to the photo image, and to add a message or an illustration to the edited picture by hand, instead of using the photo image as it is.
As means to fulfill the desire, a method may be employed for displaying and editing a photo image using a display unit and an operation panel provided in an image composition apparatus, and combining the resulting edited photo image with a handwritten image which is written on a separate sheet of paper and read by a reading apparatus.
In the above described example of the prior art, however, there is a problem that, if a user wants to write a message or an illustration by hand in the edited photo image so that it is positioned in the background area other than the person appearing as the subject, for example, the user cannot recognize, during the creation of a handwritten image such as a message or an illustration, in what positional relationship the handwritten image will be superimposed on the photo image if they are combined.
Furthermore, since the editing information, such as a trimming position, a correction parameter or a decorative pattern, designated by the user is required at the time when a composition process is executed after the handwritten image has been read by the reading apparatus, the editing information must be stored within the apparatus until the user creates the handwritten image and completes the reading operation. Therefore, there is another problem that the image processing apparatus cannot be used for other purposes, and neither can be turned off while the user is creating the handwritten image.